He'll probably find work flying a corporate jet if he's laid off, McKee said.
Commercial airline jobs, he said, have become increasingly hard to come by. And pilots who switch airlines generally have to start all over, working at the minimum pay scale and getting the least desirable assignments.
US Airways pilot Steve McKee is among the employees who expect to lose their jobs.
(Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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_____More From The Post_____
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US Airways, Dispatchers Agree to Cuts (The Washington Post, Sep 22, 2004)
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US Airways Loses Loans For 100 Jets (The Washington Post, Sep 18, 2004)
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Costs Must Be Reduced Soon, US Airways Says (The Washington Post, Sep 15, 2004)
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Pension Agency Seeks More Power (The Washington Post, Sep 15, 2004)
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US Airways Miscalculated Financial Needs (The Washington Post, Sep 14, 2004)
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Analysts Cast Doubt On US Airways' Value (The Washington Post, Sep 14, 2004)
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This Time, Frequent Fliers A Little Edgy (The Washington Post, Sep 14, 2004)
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"United, American and Northwest have all laid off pilots," McKee said. "I have applied at Southwest. But I'm told they already have over 5,000 qualified applicants on file."
Taylor said he once earned $297,000 a year as a US Airways pilot and flight instructor. He said he now earns $144,000, and the airline has proposed a 16.5 percent pay cut as part of its restructuring plan, he said.
"What would I do if my job went away?" said Taylor, who has three children and a wife who's a United flight attendant. "I've taught high school, been a ski instructor. But my heart is in flying.
"If I went to work for a regional carrier, those guys are looking at around $25,000 for a first officer. You know, you can make more money as an assistant manager at McDonald's."
US Airways says it was pushed into bankruptcy largely by labor costs, which are much higher than those of its low-cost competitors, and by a fuel bill that will total about $300 million more than the carrier anticipated.
In May, the airline sounded a warning in an employees' newsletter, titled "A plan to reshape US Airways."
"Consumers are demanding lower, simpler fares and carriers like Southwest, America West, AirTran and JetBlue have been successful because they are able to provide what customers want," the newsletter said. "Budget airlines now account for nearly a third of domestic capacity, up 9 percentage points just since 2000 and are expected to top 40 percent by the end of the decade."
In the newsletter, US Airways pledged to reduce costs through "more efficient operations and labor savings."
Low-cost carriers can charge lower fares, in part, because they pay their employees less, airline executives say.
Three-month-old Independence Air, for example, says it pays its senior flight attendants a top hourly base wage of $30. The most-senior flight attendants at US Airways earn a base wage of $41 an hour, according to a union executive.
But with more pay cuts seemingly on the way, " a lot of our flight attendants are out looking for other jobs," McCarthy said. "Many of our flight attendants bought homes and had children, thinking they could afford this. But now the promise that was made to us is no longer there. You know, we can't send our children back."
Gauthier, who lives in North Arlington, says he isn't taking any chances. He's started an after-hours business, buying run-down homes in Baltimore, renovating and selling them.
"I started doing this last year," he said. "You'd have to be blind not to see that economic changes were on the horizon in the airline industry."
